Collections and Recollections by George William Erskine Russell

Its easy to link to paragraphs in the Full Text ArchiveIf this page contains some material that you want to link to but you don't want your visitors to have to scroll down the whole page just hover your mouse over the relevent paragraph and click the bookmark icon that appears to the left of it. The address of that paragraph will appear in the address bar of your browser. For further details about how you can link to the Full Text Archive please refer to our linking page.

The Cabinet is the Board of Directors of the British Empire. All itsmembers are theoretically equal; but, as at other Boards, the effectivepower really resides in three or four. At the present moment[35]Manchester is represented by one of these potent few. Saturday is theusual day for the meeting of the Cabinet, though it may be convened atany moment as special occasion arises. Describing the potato-diseasewhich led to the repeal of the Corn Laws, Lord Beaconsfield wrote: "Thismysterious but universal sickness of a single root changed the historyof the world. 'There is no gambling like politics,' said LordRoehampton, as he glanced at the _Times_: 'four Cabinets in one week!The Government must be more sick than the potatoes!'"

Twelve is the usual hour for the meeting of the Cabinet, and thebusiness is generally over by two. At the Cabinets held during Novemberthe legislative programme for next session is settled, and thepreparation of each measure is assigned to a sub-committee of Ministersspecially conversant with the subject-matter. Lord Salisbury holds hisCabinets at the Foreign Office; but the old place of meeting was theofficial residence of the First Lord of the Treasury at 10 DowningStreet, in a pillared room looking over the Horse Guards Parade, andhung with portraits of departed First Lords.

In theory, of course, the proceedings of the Cabinet are absolutelysecret. The Privy Councillor's oath prohibits all disclosures. No recordis kept of the business done. The door is guarded by vigilant attendantsagainst possible eavesdroppers. The dispatch-boxes which constantlycirculate between Cabinet Ministers, carrying confidential matters, arecarefully locked with special keys, said to date from the administrationof Mr. Pitt; and the possession of these keys constitutes admission intowhat Lord Beaconsfield called "the circles of high initiation." Yet inreality more leaks out than is supposed. In the Cabinet of 1880-5 theleakage to the press was systematic and continuous. Even Mr. Gladstone,the stiffest of sticklers for official reticence, held that a CabinetMinister might impart his secrets to his wife and his Private Secretary.The wives of official men are not always as trustworthy as Mrs. Bucketin _Bleak House_, and some of the Private Secretaries in the Governmentof 1880 were little more than boys. Two members of that Cabinet werenotorious for their free communications to the press, and it was oftenremarked that the _Birmingham Daily Post_ was peculiarly well informed.A noble Lord who held a high office, and who, though the most pompous,was not the wisest of mankind, was habitually a victim to a certainjournalist of known enterprise, who used to waylay him outside DowningStreet and accost him with jaunty confidence: "Well, Lord----, so youhave settled on so-and-so after all?" The noble lord, astonished thatthe Cabinet's decision was already public property, would reply, "As youknow so much, there can be no harm in telling the rest"; and thejournalist, grinning like a dog, ran off to print the precious morsel ina special edition of the _Millbank Gazette_. Mr. Justin McCarthy could,I believe, tell a curious story of a highly important piece of foreignintelligence communicated by a Minister to the _Daily News_; of aresulting question in the House of Commons; and of the same Minister'semphatic declaration that no effort should be wanting to trace thisviolator of official confidence and bring him to condign punishment.

While it is true that outsiders sometimes become possessed by thesedodges of official secrets, it is not less true that Cabinet Ministersare often curiously in the dark about great and even startling events. Apolitical lady once said to me, "Do you in your party think much of myneighbour, Mr. ----?" As in duty bound, I replied, "Oh yes, a greatdeal." She rejoined, "I shouldn't have thought it, for when the boys areshouting any startling news in the special editions, I see him run outwithout his hat to buy an evening paper. That doesn't look well for aCabinet Minister." On the fatal 6th of May 1882 I dined in company withMr. Bright. He stayed late, but never heard a word of the murders whichhad taken place that evening in the Phoenix Park; went off quietly tobed, and read them as news in the next morning's _Observer_.

But, after all, attendance at the Cabinet, though a most important, isonly an occasional, event in the life of one of her Majesty's Ministers.Let us consider the ordinary routine of his day's work during thesession of Parliament. The truly virtuous Minister, we may presume,struggles down to the dining room to read prayers and to breakfast inthe bosom of his family between 9 and 10 A.M. But the self-indulgentbachelor declines to be called, and sleeps his sleep out. Mr. ArthurBalfour invariably breakfasts at 12; and more politicians than wouldadmit it consume their tea and toast in bed. Mercifully, the dreadfulhabit of giving breakfast-parties, though sanctioned by the memories ofHolland and Macaulay and Rogers and Houghton, virtually died out withthe disappearance of Mr. Gladstone.

"Men who breakfast out are generally Liberals," says Lady St. Julians in_Sybil_. "Have not you observed that?"

"I wonder why?"

"It shows a restless, revolutionary mind," said Lady Firebrace, "thatcan settle to nothing, but must be running after gossip the moment theyare awake."

"Yes," said Lady St. Julians, "I think those men who breakfast out, orwho give breakfasts, are generally dangerous characters; at least Iwould not trust them."

And Lady St. Julians's doctrine, though half a century old, applies withperfect exactness to those enemies of the human race who endeavour tokeep alive or to resuscitate this desperate tradition. Juvenal describedthe untimely fate of the man who went into his bath with an undigestedpeacock in his system. Scarcely pleasanter are the sensations of theMinister or the M.P. who goes from a breakfast-party, full of butteredmuffins and broiled salmon, to the sedentary desk-work of his office orthe fusty wrangles of a Grand Committee.

Breakfast over, the Minister's fancy lightly turns to thoughts ofexercise. If he is a man of active habits and strenuous tastes, he maytake a gentle breather up Highgate Hill, like Mr. Gladstone, or playtennis, like Sir Edward Grey. Lord Spencer when in office might be seenany morning cantering up St. James's Street on a hack, or pounding roundHyde Park in high naval debate with Sir Ughtred Kay-Shuttleworth. LordRosebery drives himself in a cab; Mr. Asquith is driven; bothoccasionally survey the riding world over the railings of Rotten Row;and even Lord Salisbury may be found prowling about the Green Park, towhich his house in Arlington Street has a private access. Mr. Balfour,as we all know, is a devotee of the cycle, and his example is catching;but Mr. Chamberlain holds fast to the soothing belief that, when a manhas walked upstairs to bed, he has made as much demand on his physicalenergies as is good for him, and that exercise was invented by thedoctors in order to bring grist to their mill.

Whichever of these examples our Minister prefers to follow, his exerciseor his lounge must be over by 12 o'clock. The Grand Committees meet atthat hour; on Wednesday the House meets then; and if he is not requiredby departmental business to attend either the Committee or the House, hewill probably be at his office by midday. The exterior aspect of theGovernment Offices in Whitehall is sufficiently well known, and anypeculiarities which it may present are referable to the fact that theexecution of an Italian design was entrusted by the wisdom of Parliamentto a Gothic architect. Inside, their leading characteristics are theabundance and steepness of the stairs, the total absence of light, andan atmosphere densely charged with Irish stew. Why the servants of theBritish Government should live exclusively on this delicacy, and why itsodours should prevail with equal pungency "from morn to noon, from noonto dewy eve," are matters of speculation too recondite for popularhandling.

The Minister's own room is probably on the first floor--perhaps lookinginto Whitehall, perhaps into the Foreign Office Square, perhaps on tothe Horse Guards Parade. It is a large room with immense windows, and afireplace ingeniously contrived to send all its heat up the chimney. Ifthe office is one of the older ones, the room probably contains somegood pieces of furniture derived, from a less penurious age than ours--abureau or bookcase of mahogany dark with years, showing in its staidornamentation traces of Chippendale or Sheraton; a big clock in ahandsome case; and an interesting portrait of some historic statesmanwho presided over the department two centuries ago. But in the moremodern offices all is barren. Since the late Mr. Ayrton was FirstCommissioner of Works a squalid cheapness has reigned supreme. Deal andpaint are everywhere; doors that won't shut, bells that won't ring, andcurtains that won't meet. In two articles alone there isprodigality--books and stationery. Hansard's Debates, the Statutes atLarge, treatises illustrating the work of the office, and books ofreference innumerable, are there; and the stationery shows a delightfulvariety of shape, size, and texture, adapted to every conceivableexigency of official correspondence.

It is indeed in the item of stationery, and in that alone, that thegrand old constitutional system of perquisites survives. Morbidlyconscientious Ministers sometimes keep a supply of their privateletter-paper on their office-table and use it for their privatecorrespondence; but the more frankly human sort write all their letterson official paper. On whatever paper written, Ministers' letters go freefrom the office and the House of Commons; and certain artfulcorrespondents outside, knowing that a letter to a public office neednot be stamped, write to the Minister at his official address and savetheir penny. In days gone by each Secretary of State received on hisappointment a silver inkstand, which he could hand down as a keepsake tohis children. Mr. Gladstone, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer,abolished this little perquisite, and the only token of office which anoutgoing Minister can now take with him is his dispatch-box. The wife ofa minister who had long occupied an official residence, on being evictedfrom office said with a pensive sigh, "I hope I am not avaricious, butI must say, when one was hanging up pictures, it was very pleasant tohave the Board of Works carpenter and a bag of the largest nails fornothing."

The late Sir William Gregory used to narrate how when a child he wastaken by his grandfather, who was Under-Secretary for Ireland, to seethe Chief Secretary, Lord Melbourne, in his official room. Thegood-natured old Whig asked the boy if there was anything in the roomthat he would like; and he chose a large stick of sealing-wax, "That'sright," said Lord Melbourne, pressing a bundle of pens into his hand:"begin life early. All these things belong to the public, and yourbusiness must always be to get out of the public as much as you can."There spoke the true spirit of our great governing families.

And now our Minister, seated at his official table, touches hispneumatic bell. His Private Secretary appears with a pile of papers, andthe day's work begins. That work, of course, differs enormously inamount, nature, importance, and interest with different offices. To theoutside world probably one office is much the same as another, but thedifference in the esoteric view is wide indeed. When the Revised Versionof the New Testament came out, an accomplished gentleman who had oncebeen Mr. Gladstone's Private Secretary, and had been appointed by him toan important post in the permanent Civil Service, said: "Mr. Gladstone,I have been looking at the Revised Version, and I think it distinctlyinferior to the old one."

"Indeed," said Mr. Gladstone, with all his theological ardour roused atonce: "I am very much interested to hear you say so. Pray give me aninstance."

"Well," replied the Permanent Official, "look at the first verse of thesecond chapter of St. Luke. That verse used to run, 'There went out adecree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.' Well, Ialways thought that a splendid idea--a tax levied on the whole world bya single Act--a grand stroke worthy of a great empire and an imperialtreasury. But in the Revised Version I find, 'There went out a decreethat all the world should be enrolled'--a mere counting! a census! thesort of thing the Local Government Board could do! Will any one tell methat the new version is as good as the old one in this passage?"

This story aptly illustrates the sentiments with which the more powerfuland more ancient departments regard those later births of time, theBoard of Trade, the Local Government Board, the Board of Agriculture,and even the Scotch Office--though this last is redeemed from uttercontempt by the irritable patriotism of our Scottish fellow-citizens,and by the beautiful house in which it is lodged. For a Minister wholoves an arbitrary and single-handed authority the India Office is themost attractive of all. The Secretary of State for India, is (except infinancial matters, where he is controlled by his Council) a pure despot.He has the Viceroy at the end of a telegraph-wire, and the Queen's threehundred millions of Indian subjects under his thumb. His salary is notvoted by the House of Commons; very few M.P.'s care a rap about India;and he is practically free from Parliamentary control. The ForeignOffice, of course, is full of interest, and its social traditions havealways been of the most dignified sort--from the days when Mr.Ranville-Ranville used to frequent Mrs. Perkins's Balls to the existingreign of Sir Thomas Sanderson and Mr. Eric Barrington.

The Treasury has its finger in every departmental pie except the Indianone, for no Minister and no department can carry out reforms or evendischarge its ordinary routine without public money, and of public moneythe Treasury is the vigilant and inflexible guardian. "I am directed toacquaint you that My Lords do not see their way to comply with yoursuggestion, inasmuch as to do so would be to _open a serious door_."This delightful formula, with its dread suggestion of a flippant doorand all the mischief to which it might lead, is daily employed to checkthe ardour of Ministers who are seeking to advance the benefit of therace (including their own popularity among their constituents) by ajudicious expenditure of public money. But whatever be the scope andfunction of the office, and whatever the nature of the work done there,the mode of doing it is pretty much the same. Whether the matter inquestion originates inside the office by some direction or inquiry ofthe chief, or comes by letter from outside, it is referred to theparticular department of the office which is concerned with it. A clerkmakes a careful minute, giving the facts of the case and the practice ofthe office as bearing on it. The paper is then sent to any otherdepartment or person in the office that can possibly have any concernwith it. It is minuted by each, and it gradually passes up, by more orfewer official gradations, to the Under-Secretary of State, who reads,or is supposed to read, all that has been written on the paper in itsearlier stages, balances the perhaps conflicting views of differentannotators, and, if the matter is too important for his own decision,sums up in a minute of recommendation to the chief. The ultimatedecision, however, is probably less affected by the Under-Secretary'sminute than by the oral advice of a much more important personage, thePermanent Head of the office.

It would be beyond my present scope to discuss the composition andpowers of the permanent Civil Service, whose chiefs have been, at leastsince the days of Bagehot, recognized as the real rulers of thiscountry. For absolute knowledge of their business, for self-denyingdevotion to duty, for ability, patience, courtesy, and readiness to helpthe fleeting Political Official, the permanent chiefs of the CivilService are worthy of the highest praise. That they areconservative[36] to the core is only to say that they are human. Onbeing appointed to permanent office the extremist theorists, like thebees in the famous epigram, "cease to hum" their revolutionary airs, andsettle down into the profound conviction that things are well as theyare. All the more remarkable is the entire equanimity with which thePermanent Official accepts the unpalatable decision of a chief who isstrong enough to override him, and the absolute loyalty with which hewill carry out a policy which he cordially disapproves.

Much of a Minister's comfort and success depends upon his PrivateSecretary. Some Ministers import for this function a young gentleman offashion whom they know at home--a picturesque butterfly who flits gailythrough the dusty air of the office, making, by the splendour of hisraiment, sunshine in its shady places, and daintily passing on the workto unrecognized and unrewarded clerks. But the better practice is toappoint as Private Secretary one of the permanent staff of the office.He supplies his chief with official information, hunts up necessaryreferences, writes his letters, and interviews his bores.

When the late Lord Ampthill was a junior clerk in the Foreign Office,Lord Palmerston, then Foreign Secretary, introduced an innovationwhereby, instead of being solemnly summoned by a verbal message, theclerks were expected to answer his bell. Some haughty spirits rebelledagainst being treated like footmen, and tried to organize resistance;but Odo Russell, as he then was, refused to join the rebelliousmovement, saying that whatever method apprized him most quickly of LordPalmerston's wishes was the method which he preferred. The aggrievedclerks regarded him as a traitor to his order--but he died anambassador. Trollope described the wounded feelings of a young clerkwhose chief sent him to fetch his slippers; and in our own day a PrivateSecretary, who had patiently taken tickets for the play for his chief'sdaughters, drew the line when he was told to take the chief's razors tobe ground. But such assertions of independence are extremely rare, andas a rule the Private Secretary is the most cheerful and the most alertof ministering spirits.

But it is time to return from this personal digression to the routine ofthe day's work. Among the most important of the morning's duties is thepreparation of answers to be given in the House of Commons, and it isoften necessary to have answers ready by three o'clock to questionswhich have only appeared that morning on the notice-paper. The range ofquestions is infinite, and all the resources of the office are taxed inorder to prepare answers at once accurate in fact and wise in policy, topass them under the Minister's review, and to get them fairly copied outbefore the House meets. As a rule, the Minister, knowing something ofthe temper of Parliament, wishes to give a full, explicit, andintelligible answer, or even to go a little beyond the strict terms ofthe question if he sees what his interrogator is driving at. But thispolicy is abhorrent to the Permanent Official. The traditions of theCircumlocution Office are by no means dead, and the crime of "wanting toknow, you know," is one of the most heinous that the M.P. can commit.The answers, therefore, as prepared for the Minister are generallyjejune, often barely civil, sometimes actually misleading. But theMinister, if he be a wise man, edits them into a more informing shape,and after a long and careful deliberation as to the probable effect ofhis words and the reception which they will have from his questioner, hesends the bundle of written answers away to be fair-copied and turns tohis correspondence.

And here the practice of Ministers varies exceedingly. Lord Salisburywrites almost everything with his own hand. Mr. Balfour dictates to ashorthand clerk. Most Ministers write a great deal by their PrivateSecretaries. Letters of any importance are usually transcribed into acopying-book. A Minister whom I knew used to burn the fragment ofblotting-paper with which he had blotted his letter, and laid it down asan axiom that, if a constituent wrote and asked a Member to vote for aparticular measure, the Member should on no account give a more precisereply than, "I shall have great pleasure in voting in the sense youdesire." For, as this expert observed with great truth, "unless theconstituent has kept a copy of his letter--and the chances are twenty toone against that--there will be nothing to prove what the sense hedesired was, and you will be perfectly safe in voting as you like." Theletters received by a Minister are many, various, and surprising. Ofcourse, a great proportion of them relate to public business, and aconsiderable number to the affairs of his constituency. But, in additionto all this, lunatics, cranks, and impostors mark a Minister for theirown, and their applications for loans, gifts, and offices of profitwould exhaust the total patronage of the Crown and break the Bank ofEngland.

When the day's official papers have been dealt with, answers toquestions settled, correspondence read, and the replies written ordictated, it is very likely time to go to a conference on some Bill withwhich the office is concerned. This conference will consist of theMinister in charge of the Bill, two or three of his colleagues who havespecial knowledge of the subject, the Permanent Officials, theParliamentary draftsman, and perhaps one of the Law Officers. At theconference the amendments on the paper are carefully discussed, togetherwith the objects for which they were presumably put down, their probableeffect, their merits or demerits, and the best mode of meeting them. Anhour soon passes in this kind of anticipatory debate, and the Ministeris called away to receive a deputation.

The scene is exactly like that which Matthew Arnold described at theSocial Science Congress--the large bare room, dusty air, and jadedlight, serried ranks of men with bald heads and women in spectacles; thelocal M.P., like Mr. Gregsbury in _Nicholas Nickleby_, full ofaffability and importance, introducing the selected spokesmen--"Ourworthy mayor; our leading employer of labour; Miss Twoshoes, aphilanthropic worker in all good causes"--the Minister, profoundlyignorant of the whole subject, smiling blandly or gazing earnestly fromhis padded chair; the Permanent Official at his elbow murmuring what the"practice of the department" has been, what his predecessor said on asimilar occasion ten years ago, and why the object of the deputation isequally mischievous and impossible; and the Minister finally expressingsympathy and promising earnest consideration. Mr. Bright, though thelaziest of mankind at official work, was the ideal hand at receivingdeputations. Some Ministers scold or snub or harangue, but he let thespokesmen talk their full, listened patiently, smiled pleasantly, saidvery little, treated the subject with gravity or banter as its naturerequired, paid the introducing member a compliment on his assiduity andpublic spirit, and sent them all away on excellent terms with themselvesand highly gratified by their intelligent and courteous reception.

So far we have described our Minister's purely departmental duties. Butperhaps the Cabinet meets at twelve, and at the Cabinet he must, to useMr. Gladstone's phrase, "throw his mind into the common stock" with hisfellow-Ministers, and take part in the discussions and decisions whichgovern the Empire. By two o'clock or thereabouts the Cabinet is over.The labours of the morning are now beginning to tell, and exhaustedNature rings her luncheon-bell. Here again men's habits widely differ.If our Minister has breakfasted late, he will go on till four or five,and then have tea and toast, and perhaps a poached egg; but if he is anearly man, he craves for nutriment more substantial. He must not go outto luncheon to a friend's house, for he will be tempted to eat and drinktoo much, and absence from official territory in the middle of the dayhas a bad look of idleness and self-indulgence. The _dura ilia_ of thepresent[37] Duke of Devonshire could always cope with a slice of theoffice-joint, a hunch of the office-bread, a glass of the office-sherry.But, as a rule, if a man cannot manage to get back to the family meal inSouth Kensington or Cavendish Square, he turns into a club, has a cutletand a glass of claret, and gets back to his office for another hour'swork before going to the House.

At 3.30 questions begin, and every Minister is in his place, unless,indeed, there is a Levee or a Drawing-room, when a certain number ofMinisters, besides the great Officers of State, are expected to bepresent. The Minister lets himself into the House by a private door--ofwhich Ministers alone have the key--at the back of the Chair. For anhour and a half, or perhaps longer, the storm of questions rages, andthen the Minister, if he is in charge of the Bill under discussion,settles himself on the Treasury Bench to spend the remainder of the dayin a hand-to-hand encounter with the banded forces of the Opposition,which will tax to their utmost his brain, nerve, and physical endurance.If, however, he is not directly concerned with the business, he goes outperhaps for a breath of air and a cup of tea on the Terrace, and thenburies himself in his private room--generally a miserable littledog-hole in the basement of the House--where he finds a pile ofoffice-boxes, containing papers which must be read, minuted, andreturned to the office with all convenient dispatch. From these labourshe is suddenly summoned by the shrill ting-ting of the division-bell andthe raucous bellow of the policeman to take part in a division. Herushes upstairs two steps at a time, and squeezes himself into theHouse through the almost closed doors. "What are we?" he shouts to theWhip. "Ayes" or "Noes" is the hurried answer; and he stalks through thelobby to discharge this intelligent function, dives down to his roomagain, only, if the House is in Committee, to be dragged up again tenminutes afterwards for another repetition of the same farce, and so onindefinitely.

It may be asked why a Minister should undergo all this worry of runningup and down and in and out, laying down his work and taking it up again,dropping threads, and losing touch, and wasting time, all to give apurely party vote, settled for him by his colleague in charge of theBill, on a subject with which he is personally unfamiliar. If theGovernment is in peril, of course every vote is wanted; but, with anormal majority, Ministers' votes might surely be "taken as read," andassumed to be given to the side to which they belong. But the traditionsof Government require Ministers to vote. It is a point of honour foreach man to be in as many divisions as possible. A record is kept of allthe divisions of the session and of the week, and a list is sent roundevery Monday morning showing in how many each Minister has voted.

The Whips, who must live and move and have their being in the House,naturally head the list, and their colleagues follow in a ratheruncertain order. A Minister's place in this list is mainly governed bythe question whether he dines at the House or not. If he dines away and"pairs," of course he does not in the least jeopardize his party orembarrass his colleagues; but "pairs" are not indicated in the list ofdivisions, and, as divisions have an awkward knack of happening betweennine and ten, the habitual diner-out naturally sinks in the list. If heis a married man, the claims of the home are to a certain extentrecognized by his Whips, but woe to the bachelor who, with no domesticexcuse, steals away for two hours' relaxation. The good Ministertherefore stays at the House and dines there. Perhaps he is entertainingladies in the crypt-like dining-rooms which look on the Terrace, and inthat case the charms of society may neutralize the material discomforts.But, if he dine upstairs at the Ministerial table, few indeed are thealleviations of his lot. In the first place he must dine with thecolleagues with whom his whole waking life is passed--excellent fellowsand capital company--but nature demands an occasional enlargement of themental horizon. Then if by chance he has one special bugbear--a bore oran egotist, a man with dirty hands or a churlish temper--that man willinevitably come and sit down beside him and insist on being affectionateand fraternal.

The room is very hot; dinners have been going on in it for the last twohours; the [Greek: knise]--the odour of roast meat, which the godsloved, but which most men dislike--pervades the atmosphere; yournext-door neighbour is eating a rather high grouse while you are at yourapple-tart, or the perfumes of a deliquescent Camembert mingle with yourcoffee. As to beverages, you may, if you choose, follow the example ofLord Cross, who, when he was Sir Richard, drank beer in its nativepewter, or of Mr. Radcliffe Cooke, who tries to popularize cider; or youmay venture on that thickest, blackest, and most potent of vintageswhich a few years back still went by the name of "Mr. Disraeli's port."But as a rule these heroic draughts are eschewed by the modern Minister.Perhaps, if he is in good spirits after making a successful speech orfighting his Estimates through Committee, he will indulge himself withan imperial pint of champagne; but more often a whiskey-and-soda or ahalf-bottle of Zeltinger quenches his modest thirst.

On Wednesday and Saturday our Minister, if he is not out of London,probably dines at a large dinner-party. Once a session he must dine infull dress with the Speaker; once he must dine at, or give, a full-dressdinner "to celebrate her Majesty's Birthday." On the eve of the meetingof Parliament he must dine again in full dress with the Leader of theHouse, to hear the rehearsal of the "gracious Speech from the Throne."But, as a rule, his fate on Wednesday and Saturday is a ceremoniousbanquet at a colleague's house, and a party strictly political--perhapsthe Prime Minister as the main attraction, reinforced by Lord and LadyDecimus Tite-Barnacle, Mr. and Mrs. Stiltstalking, Sir John Taper, andyoung Mr. Tadpole. A political dinner of thirty colleagues, male andfemale, in the dog-days is only a shade less intolerable than the greasyrations and mephitic vapours of the House of Commons' dining-room.

At the political dinner "shop" is the order of the day. Conversationturns on Brown's successful speech, Jones's palpable falling-off,Robinson's chance of office, the explanation of a recent by-election, orthe prospects of an impending division. And, to fill the cup of boredomto the brim, the political dinner is usually followed by a politicalevening-party. On Saturday the Minister probably does two hours' work athis office and has some boxes sent to his house, but the afternoon hespends in cycling, or golfing, or riding, or boating, or he leavesLondon till Monday morning. On Wednesday he is at the House till six,and then escapes for a breath of air before dinner. But on Monday,Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, as a rule, he is at the House from itsmeeting at three till it adjourns at any hour after midnight. Afterdinner he smokes and reads and tries to work in his room, and goes tosleep and wakes again, and towards midnight is unnaturally lively.Outsiders believe in the "twelve o'clock rule," but insiders know that,as a matter of fact, it is suspended as often as an Irish member in the'80 Parliament. Whoever else slopes homewards, the Government must stay.Before now a Minister has been fetched out of his bed, to which he hadsurreptitiously retired, by a messenger in a hansom, and taken back tothe House to defend his Estimates at three in the morning.

"There they sit with ranks unbroken, cheering on the fierce debate, Till the sunrise lights them homeward as they tramp through Storey's Gate, Racked with headache, pale and haggard, worn by nights of endless talk, While the early sparrows twitter all along the Birdcage Walk."

Some ardent souls there are who, if report speaks true, are not contentwith even this amount of exertion and excitement, but finish the night,or begin the day, with a rubber at the club or even a turn at baccarat.However, we are describing, not choice spirits or chartered _viveurs_,but the blameless Minister, whose whole life during the Parliamentarysession is the undeviating and conscientious discharge of official duty;and he, when he lays his head upon his respectable pillow any time after1 a.m., may surely go to sleep in the comfortable consciousness that hehas done a fair day's work for a not exorbitant remuneration.

FOOTNOTES:

[35] 1897.

[36] The word "conservative" here applies only to official routine. TheCivil Service has no politics, but many of its members are staunchLiberals.

[37] Spencer Compton, 8th Duke.

XXXIV.

AN OLD PHOTOGRAPH-BOOK.

The diary from which these Recollections have been mainly gathered datesfrom my thirteenth year, and it has lately received some unexpectedillustrations. In turning out the contents of a neglected cupboard, Istumbled on a photograph-book which I filled while I was a boy at aPublic School. The school has lately been described under the name ofLyonness,[38] and that name will serve as well as another. The book hadbeen mislaid years ago, and when it accidentally came to light a strangearoma of old times seemed still to hang about it. Inside and out, it wasreminiscent of a life in which for five happy years I bore my part.Externally the book showed manifest traces of a schoolboy's ownership,in broken corners; plentiful ink-stains, from exercises and punishments;droppings of illicit candle grease, consumed long after curfew-time;round marks like fairy rings on a greensward, which indicated thestandpoint of extinct jam pots--where are those jam pots now? But, whilethe outside of the book spoke thus, as it were, by innuendo andsuggestion, the inside seemed to shout with joyous laughter or chucklewith irreverent mirth; or murmured, in tones lower perhaps, butcertainly not less distinct, of things which were neither joyous normirthful.

The book had been carefully arranged. As I turned over the leaves,there came back the memory of holiday-evenings and the interestedquestionings of sisters over each new face or scene; and the kindfingers which did the pasting-in; and the care with which we madeportrait and landscape fit into and illustrate one another. And whatmemories, what impressions, strong and clear as yesterday's, clung toeach succeeding view! The Spire--that "pinnacle perched on aprecipice"--with its embosoming trees, as one had so often seen it fromthe North-Western Railway, while the finger of fate, protruding from thecarriage window, pointed it out with--"That's where you will go toschool." And, years later, came the day when one travelled for the firsttime by a train which did not rush through Lyonness Station (then howsmall), but stopped there, and disgorged its crowd of boys and theirconfusion of luggage, and oneself among the rest, and one's father justas excited and anxious and eager as his son.

A scurry for a seat on the omnibus or a tramp uphill, and we findourselves abruptly in the village street. Then did each page as I turnedit over bring some fresh recollection of one's unspeakable sense ofnewness and desolation; the haunting fear of doing something ludicrous;the morbid dread of chaff and of being "greened," which even in my timehad, happily, supplanted the old terrors of being tossed in a blanket orroasted at a fire. Even less, I venture to think, was one thrilled bythe heroic ambitions, the magnificent visions of struggle and success,which stir the heroes of schoolboy novels on the day of their arrival.

Here was a view of the School Library, with its patch of greenswardseparating it from the dust and traffic of the road. There was the OldSchool with its Fourth Form Room, of which one had heard so much thatthe actual sight of it made one half inclined to laugh and half to crywith surprise and disappointment. There was the twisting High Street,with its precipitous causeway; there was the faithful presentment of thefashionable "tuck-shop," with two boys standing in the road, and the legof a third caught by the camera as he hurried past; and, wanderingthrough all these scenes in the album as one had wandered through themin real life, I reached at last my boarding-house, once a place ofmystery and wonderful expectations and untried experiences; now full ofmemories, some bright, some sad, but all gathering enchantment fromtheir retrospective distance; and in every brick and beam and cupboardand corner as familiar as home itself.

The next picture, a view of the School Bathing-place, carried me a stageonward in memory to my first summer quarter. Two terms of school lifehad inured one to a new existence, and one began to know the pleasures,as well as the pains, of a Public School. It was a time of cloudlessskies, and abundant "strawberry mashes," and _dolce far niente_ in thatsweetly-shaded pool, when the sky was at its bluest, and the air at itshottest, and the water at its most inviting temperature.

And then the Old Speech-Room, so ugly, so incommodious, where we stoodpenned together like sheep for the slaughter, under the gallery, to hearour fate on the first morning of our school life, and where, when he hadmade his way up the school, the budding scholar received his prize ordeclaimed his verses on Speech Day. That was the crowning day of theyoung orator's ambition, when there was an arch of evergreens rearedover the school gate, and Lyonness was all alive with carriages, andrelations, and grandees,

"And, as Lear, he poured forth the deep imprecation, By his daughters of Kingdom and reason deprived; Till, fired by loud plaudits and self-adulation, He regarded himself as a Garrick revived."

Opposite the Old Speech-Room was the interior of the Chapel, with itsroof still echoing the thunder of the Parting Hymn; and the pulpit withits unforgotten pleadings for truthfulness and purity; and the organ,still vocal with those glorious psalms. And, high over all, theChurchyard Hill, with its heaven-pointing spire, and the Poet's Tomb;and, below, the incomparable expanse of pasture and woodland stretchingright away to the "proud keep with its double belt of kindred and coevaltowers."

"Still does yon bank its living hues unfold, With bloomy wealth of amethyst and gold; How oft at eve we watched, while there we lay, The flaming sun lead down the dying day, Soothed by the breeze that wandered to and fro Through the glad foliage musically low. Still stands that tree, and rears its stately form In rugged strength, and mocks the winter storm; There, while of slender shade and sapling growth, We carved our schoolboy names, a mutual troth. All, all, revives a bliss too bright to last, And every leaflet whispers of the past."

And while the views of places were thus eloquent of the old days,assuredly not less so were the portraits. There was the Head Master inhis silken robes, looking exactly as he did when, enthroned in the SixthForm Room, he used to deliver those well-remembered admonitions--"Neversay what you know to be wrong," and "Let us leave _commence_ and_partake_ to the newspapers."

And there was the Mathematical Master--the Rev. RhadamanthusRhomboid--compared with whom his classical namesake was a lenient judge.An admirable example was old Mr. Rhomboid of a pedagogic type which, Iam told, is passing away--precise, accurate, stern, solid; knowing verylittle, but that little thoroughly; never overlooking a slip, but seldomguilty of an injustice; sternest and most unbending of prehistoricTories, both in matters political and educational; yet carryingconcealed somewhere under the square-cut waistcoat a heart which knewhow to sympathize with boy-flesh and the many ills which it is heir to.Good old Mr. Rhomboid! I wonder if he is still alive.

Facing him in the album, and most appropriately contrasted, was theportrait of a young master--the embodiment of all that Mr. Rhomboid mostheartily loathed. We will call him Vivian Grey. Vivian Grey was anOxford Double First of unusual brilliancy, and therefore found a specialcharm and a satisfying sense of being suitably employed in his duty atLyonness, which was to instil [Greek: tupto] and Phaedrus into thefive-and-thirty little wiseacres who constituted the lowest form. Overthe heads of these sages his political and metaphysical utterancesrolled like harmless thunder, for he was at once a transcendentalist inphilosophy and a utilitarian Radical of the purest dye. All of whichmattered singularly little to his five-and-thirty disciples, but causedinfinite commotion and annoyance to the Rhomboids and Rhadamanthuses.Vivian Grey at Oxford had belonged to that school which has beendescribed as professing

"One Kant with a K, And many a cant with a c."

At Lyonness he was supposed to have helped to break the railings of HydePark in the riot of 1866, and to be a Head Centre of the FenianBrotherhood. As to personal appearance, Mr. Grey was bearded like thepard--and in those days the scholastic order shaved--while his taste indress made it likely that he was the "Man in the Red Tie" whom weremember at the Oxford Commemoration some thirty years ago. In short, hewas the very embodiment of all that was most abhorrent to the oldtraditions of the schoolmaster's profession; and proportionately greatwas the appositeness of a practical joke which was played me on mysecond or third morning at Lyonness. I was told to go for mymathematical lesson to Mr. Rhomboid, who tenanted a room in the OldSchool. Next door to his room was Mr. Grey's, and I need not say thatthe first boy whom I asked for guidance playfully directed me to thewrong door. I enter, and the Third Form suspend their Phaedrus, "Please,sir, are you Mr. Rhomboid?" I ask, amid unsmotherable laughter. Nevershall I forget the indignant ferocity with which the professor of thenew lights drove me from the room, nor the tranquil austerity with whichMr. Rhomboid, when I reached him, set me "fifty lines" before he askedme my name.

On the same page I find the portrait of two men who have before nowfigured in the world of school-fiction under the names of Rose andGordon.[39] Of Mr. Rose I will say no more than that he was an excellentschoolmaster and a most true saint, and that to his influence andwarnings many a man can, in the long retrospect, trace his escape frommoral ruin. Mr. Gordon is now a decorous Dean; at Lyonness he was themost brilliant, the most irregular, and the most fascinating ofteachers. He spoilt me for a whole quarter. I loved him for it then, andI thank him even now.

These more distinguished portraits, of cabinet dimensions, werescattered up and down among the miscellaneous herd of _cartes devisits_. The art of Messrs. Hills and Saunders was denoted by thepretentious character of the chairs introduced--the ecclesiasticalGlastonbury for masters, and velvet backs studded with gilt nails forboys. The productions of the rival photographer were distinguished by apillar of variegated marble, or possibly scagliola, on which the personportrayed leaned, bent, or propped himself in every phase of gracefuldiscomfort. The athletes and members of the School Eleven, dressed inappropriate flannel, were depicted as a rale with their arms crossedover the backs of chairs, and brought very much into focus so as todisplay the muscular development in high relief. The more studiousportion of the community, "with leaden eye that loved the ground,"scanned small photograph-books with absorbing interest; while a group ofeditors, of whom I was one, were gathered round a writing-table, withpens, ink, and paper, the finger pressed on the forehead, and on thefloor proofs of the journal which we edited--was it the _Tyro_ or the_Triumvirate_?

Among the athletes I instantly recognize Biceps Max., captain of theCricket Eleven, and practically autocrat of my house--"Charity's" thehouse was called, in allusion to a prominent feature of my tutor'scharacter. Well, at Charity's we did not think much of intellectualdistinction in those days, and little recked that Biceps was "unworthyto be classed" in the terminal examination. We were much more concernedwith the fact that he made the highest score at Lord's; that we atCharity's were absolutely under his thumb, in the most literalacceptation of that phrase; that he beat us into mummies if we evadedcricket-fagging; and that if we burnt his toast he chastised us with atea-tray. Where is Biceps now, and what? If he took Orders, I am sure hemust be a muscular Christian of the most aggressive type. If he is anOld Bailey barrister, I pity the timid witness whom he cross-examines.Why do I never meet him at the club or in society? It would be arefreshing novelty to sit at dinner opposite a man who corrected yourjuvenile shortcomings with a tea-tray. Would he attempt it again if Icontradicted him in conversation, or confuted him in argument, or cappedhis best story with a better?

Next comes Longbow--Old Longbow, as we called him; I suppose as a termof endearment, for there was no Young Longbow. He was an Irishman, andthe established wit, buffoon, and jester of the school. Innumerablestories are still told of his youthful escapades, of his audacity andskill in cribbing, of his dexterity in getting out of scrapes, of hisrepartees to masters and persons in authority. He it was who took up thesame exercise in algebra to Mr. Rhomboid all the time he was in theSixth Form, and obtained maiks, ostensibly for a French exercise, with acomposition called _De Camelo qualis sit_. He alone of created boyscould joke in the rarefied air of the Head Master's schoolroom, and hadpower to "chase away the passing frown" with some audacious witticismfor which an English boy would have been punished. Longbow was ploughedthree times at Oxford, and once "sent down." But he is now the veryorthodox vicar of a West End parish, a preacher of culture, and apattern of ecclesiastical propriety. Then, leaving these heroic figuresand coming to my own contemporaries, I discern little Paley, esteemed aprodigy of parts--Paley, who won an Entrance Scholarship while still inknickerbockers; Paley, who ran up the school faster than any boy onrecord; Paley, who was popularly supposed never to have been turned in a"rep" or to have made a false quantity; Paley, for whom his tutor andthe whole magisterial body were never tired of predicting a miraculoussuccess in after life. Poor Paley! He is at this moment languishing inLincoln's Inn, consoling himself for professional failure bycontemplating the largest extant collection of Lyonness prize-books. Iknew Paley, as boys say, "at home," and, when he had been a few years atthe Bar, I asked his mother if he had got any briefs yet. "Yes," sheanswered with maternal pride; "he has been very lucky in that way." "Andhas he got a verdict?" I asked. "Oh, no," replied the simple soul; "wedon't aspire to anything so grand as that."

Next to Paley in my book is Roderick Random, the cricketer. Dear Random,my contemporary, my form-fellow and house-fellow; partaker with me inthe ignominy of Biceps's tea-tray and the tedium of Mr. Rhomboid'sproblems: my sympathetic companion in every amusement, and the pleasantdrag on every intellectual effort--Random, who never knew a lesson, norcould answer a question; who never could get up in time for FirstSchool, nor lay his hand on his own Virgil--Random, who spent more ofhis half-holidays in Extra School than any boy of his day, and hadacquired by long practice the power of writing the "record" number oflines in an hour; who never told a lie, nor bullied a weaker boy, nordropped an unkind jest, nor uttered a shameful word--Random, for whomevery one in authority prophesied ruin, speedy and inevitable; who is,therefore, the best of landlords and the most popular of countrygentlemen; who was the most popular officer in the Guards till dutycalled him elsewhere, and at the last election came in at the top of thepoll for his native county.

Then what shall we say for Lucian Gay, whose bright eyes and curly hairgreet me on the same page, with the attractive charm which won me whenwe stood together under the Speech-Room gallery on the first morning ofour school life? Gay was often at the top of his form, yet sometimesnear the bottom; wrote, apparently by inspiration, the most brilliantverses; and never could put two and two together in Mr. Rhomboid'sschoolroom. He had the most astonishing memory on record, and aninventive faculty which often did him even better service. He was thesoul of every intellectual enterprise in the school, the best speaker atthe Debating Society; the best performer on Speech Day; who knew nothingabout [Greek: ge] and less about [Greek: men] and [Greek: de]; whocomposed satirical choices when he should have been taking notes onTacitus; edited a School Journal with surprising brilliancy; failed, toconjugate the verbs in [Greek: mi] during his last fortnight in theschool; and won the Balliol Scholarship when he was seventeen. I trust,if this meets his eye, he will accept it as a tribute of affectionaterecollection from one who worked with him, idled with him, and jokedwith him for five happy years.

Under another face, marked by a more spiritual grace, I find written_Requiescat_. None who ever knew them will forget that bright and purebeauty, those eyes of strange, supernatural light, that voice whichthrilled and vibrated with an unearthly charm. All who were hiscontemporaries remember that dauntless courage, that heroic virtue, thatstainless purity of thought and speech, before which all evil thingsseemed to shrink away abashed. We remember how the outward beauty ofbody seemed only the visible symbol of a goodness which dwelt within,and how moral and intellectual excellence grew up together, blendinginto a perfect whole. We remember the School Concert, and the enchantingvoice, and the words of the song which afterwards sounded like a warningprophecy, and the last walk together in the gloaming of a June holiday,and the loving, trusting companionship, and the tender talk of home. Andthen for a day or two we missed the accustomed presence, and dimlycaught a word of dangerous illness; and then came the agony of theparting scene, and the clear, hard, pitiless school bell, cutting on ourhearts the sense of an irreparable loss, as it thrilled through thesultry darkness of the summer night.

Here I shut the book. And with the memories which that picture called upI may well bring these Recollections to a close. It is something toremember, amid the bustle and bitterness of active life, that one oncehad youth, and hope, and eagerness, and large opportunities, andgenerous friends. A tender and regretful sentiment seems to cling to thevery walls and trees among which one cherished such bright ambitions andfelt the passionate sympathy of such loving hearts. The innocence andthe confidence of boyhood pass away soon enough, and thrice happy is hewho has contrived to keep